Not surprising considering there's little to no competition in that price range. Pretty much every not-bad PC headset is $1000+, and heavy hitters like Valve Index haven't had a hardware refresh in years.
I've been contemplating getting a VR headset, are there any ways to set up and operate an Oculus/Meta headset without giving Meta your data on a continuous basis?
Anything Meta gives a bad taste to my mouth but the price difference to the Index is 1K CAD...
I was in the same boat as you. I ended up getting the Quest 3, because frankly, it's one of the best headsets on the market right now. While Meta still tries it's best to vacuum my data, I've disabled as many data sharing options as I can find.
I do most of my VR gaming on PCVR through Steam Link, which is outstanding. If you have a PC and a good WiFi 6 router, you can avoid the Meta marketplace for the most part by buying PCVR games on Steam directly. That way Meta doesn't get as much data out of you.
One of the reasons I actually stayed with WMR headsets like the reverb g2. Unfortunately they aren't making any new ones going forward, but the headset is great!